Russian President Vladimir Putin will not join other heads of state and government at the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, but will send Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova. However, if he were to go, Putin would not be arrested, because the Italian government has never carried out the necessary paperwork in order to make the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant effective. The Italian newspaper La Repubblica, hostile to the government, has revealed that the Italian Justice Ministry had never sent the warrant to the Court of Appeal in Rome, and, therefore, the documentation needed for the arrest to be conducted was never received. Another daily, Corriere della Sera, confirmed the report, saying the court’s failure to sign off on the warrant “transformed it into a piece of paper with no effect.”
It is not clear whether Putin was aware of the situation, but it is clear that there was no oversight on the side of the government—rather, call it “Italian Job.”
